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Arrow: The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak (EPISODE REVIEW)

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Felicity Smoak may be one of the show’s most enjoyable characters, but if The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak is any gauge, she may not be the show’s most interesting. The episode delves into her past, as it quickly catches up with her present. We get some interesting revelations along the way that will certainly effect the outcome of the series in the future, but as far as this episode goes it’s mostly all filler.

We get sent back five years into Felicity’s past, where she was a self-proclaimed ‘Hacktivist’. She writes a super virus that is capable of some serious damage, one her boyfriend at the time, a jerk named Cooper, uses to his own radical ends. Well, that same code has come back to haunt her, taking down the power in all of Starling City under the name of the sinister “Brother Eye.”

Fans of DC Comics will perk up at the mention of the name. In the comicverse, Brother Eye is a satellite program begun by Bruce Wayne in order to essentially keep an eye out for potential threats. Eventually Brother Eye develops what will be known as the OMAC project – DC’s version of Marvel’s Ultron. A few episodes ago we actually got a hint at that storyline taking place, with Ray Palmer looking at several documents and on one read OMAC. Of course, we don’t know if a Bruce Wayne will be involved in CW’s TV universe, or how closely they’re keeping with the comic version of Brother Eye. As it looks now, it’s mostly been retconned for the sake of realism, money (and probably character rights).

Instead we’re led to believe that Cooper is actually Brother Eye. And his plan was? To get Felicity to help aid in his extreme hacktivist plans? Why did he need her help after the fact that he was capable of either using her original code or recreating it? And his plan to fly in Felicity’s bimbo mother as leverage was just a tad farfetched. In the end he proved neither menacing, nor the evil mastermind he probably should’ve been.

Although Felicity’s goth phase was a fun glimpse into a much darker time in her life, a whole episode devoted to it just didn’t feel warranted. And the introduction of her mother didn’t sit well with me either. It all reeked of not having enough of a story to fill 45 minutes with. And all her mother seemed to add was… well, cleavage. Cleavage for days.

The rest of the episode was, again, mostly a blur of stuff that will prove to hardly effect the outcome of any future events. Except for the stinger at the end. Roy wakes up from a strange nightmare in which he actually throws the three arrow bolts into Sara’s torso. A friend pointed out to me after the episode aired that, going back to that scene in The Calm where she gets shot, you clearly hear the drawing of the bowstring and the recoil. This is totally a red herring. It has to be.

The plot with Brother Eye was weak. Motivations didn’t make sense. However, at the end of the day I enjoyed this episode more than a few of them recently. Felicity sells it for me as a character. I found myself have far more fun and enjoying where things were going that I was able to look past all the flaws in relation to Brother Eye. If this episode did anything, it confirmed that I want to see Felicity in a central role more often.

I actually liked this episode. I think the mom more than anything else was just ment too contrast the uber conservative Falicity (except for that dress in her Flash appearance ** hubba hubba**) she played the part well of dumb bimbo and loving mother who worked hard to get her genius daughter were she is today. And for her age o
If I looked that good I would flaunt it to lol. Brother eye was appropriately evil “just because we used to screw don’t mean I won’t kill you” frankly I’d rather have a filler episode than no episode…. Yes I’m taking to you Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and FLASH.

To quote the Beav from my favorite made-up parody of a real fictional show (Leave it to Cleavage) “Hokey Smokes!”

But yeah… I found myself thinking of the musical Buffy episode and Willow’s genius singing line at one point “I think this line is mostly filler” 🙂

Also… Felicity’s 5 years ago was just 3 years prior to the beginning of season 1… which means in 3 years she straightened up to fly right and completely changed her persona and was well-entrenched in Queen Consolidated by the time Ollie shows up? I felt like this would have been more believable at 10 years ago rather than 5.. with precocious teen goth-Felicity instead of college-age Felicity.

Roy’s dream… yeah… no way he did it. He might have been a witness, though, and the dream and lack of sleep might be from being drugged by whomever did kill Sara when they found out he saw.

Actually, at the end of the episode Felicity shows back up in the college dorm, to her other roommate, dressed completely different, blonde dyed hair and all. He seemed surprised. This change supposedly happened five years ago also, after Cooper “hanged” himself.